


Cheerleading

by linoleumground



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Gay, Platonic Relationships, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:13:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27578978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linoleumground/pseuds/linoleumground
Summary: Karen Wheeler doesn’t talk to her children about her time at Hawkins High School. Nancy & Mike take finding out what she’s keeping from them into their own hands.
Relationships: Joyce Byers & Karen Wheeler, Joyce Byers/Karen Wheeler, Murray Bauman & Jim "Chief" Hopper
Comments: 5
Kudos: 14





	Cheerleading

Nancy’s mom didn’t like to talk about high school, or maybe she didn’t think it was worthwhile. Nancy had tried prying a few times, she would ask what her friends were like or what her hobbies were but Karen’s answers were redundant.  
“I was friends with the other cheerleaders,”  
“I did cheerleading, that and school, that’s about it, really,”  
Even Mike had grown interested, him and Nancy had made a sort of game out of trying to see if they could get more information out of her, even if it was usually to no avail. The most exciting her answers got were visual.  
“Did you date anyone in high school?” Mike didn’t really care to know about his mother’s dating life, but he wanted to get points for their game. The two siblings shared a look when their mom stopped cold in her dish-washing and took a shaky breath. A rubber-gloved hand reached to her chest and fell atop her cross necklace.  
“No,” she said, though her voice was shaky, “no I wasn’t… easy enough… for the boys back then, and I was so busy with- with cheerleading,”  
Mike raised his eyebrows at Nancy who made a grimace at the implication of boys wanting to ‘get with’ her mom, but it was something, which meant Mike got his points. Nancy rolled her eyes. 

Winter had rolled around and Karen was fretting about getting the Christmas lights up before it started snowing.  
“Can you and your brother handle it this year? The lights are up in the attic,”  
Nancy knew she was stressed out with PTA issues and it’s not like their dad was ever much help.  
“Yeah, of course, we’re on it,”  
Her mom gave her a quick side hug before turning back to all the papers strewn across the kitchen table.  
Nancy knocked on Mike’s door.  
“Mike?”  
No answer.  
“Mike!”  
The door swung open abruptly.  
“What? I’m in the middle of something,”  
Nancy sighed.  
“Your nerd crap can wait, mom wants us to get the Christmas decorations down from the attic,”  
Mike scowled “it’s not crap, as the DM I have to make sure the campaign is prepared perfectly every week,”  
She let out a long groan “I don’t care about the specifics, you can get back to it after we help,”  
He rolled his eyes and stepped out of his room, pushing past Nancy on his way to the attic. He continued complaining as his sister pulled down the stairs to the attic.  
“If anything goes wrong this week you owe me,”  
“Yeah, alright Mike I get it I’m the biggest nuisance in the world, get in the attic,”  
He would’ve stomped up, but he didn’t want Karen to hear and get frustrated, she was prone to frustration when she was already under stress.  
Their mom never usually let them in the attic. She explicitly stated it wasn’t an area for play or secret dates or messing around. It was one of the few rules she actually enforced. They always assumed it was just because it was cluttered or dangerous, but the attic was kept surprisingly neat, much like the rest of their house.  
Mike spotted it before Nancy had the chance and he made his way over to the cardboard box stashed off into a corner.  
“High school memories!”  
His whisper shout caught Nancy’s attention and she managed to step over the few displaced items left behind by her brother’s rampage.  
“You don’t think it’s-”  
“Mom’s? Maybe, we’ve seen most of dad’s old stuff, and this is definitely her handwriting right?”  
Nancy nodded in agreement, the writing was in her big fancy cursive lettering. Dark black on the brown cardboard. Nancy tugged the box out of it’s spot and placed it down where the two could see into it properly. She thought it was surprisingly light, and probably didn’t hold as many memories as they’d like. Mike unfolded the flaps eagerly.  
“Cheerleading…”  
Disappointment dripped from their mouths as they spoke in unison. In the box was a cheerleading uniform, some pom poms, a megaphone, tennis shoes, nothing all too exciting. Mike sighed.  
“Well that was a whole lot of excitement for nothing,”  
“Wait,” Nancy crouched down and moved a pom pom aside, a bright pink piece of fabric poked out from beneath, but when she touched it, it felt solid. It had a burlap type of texture, like a potato sack. Mike’s eyes sparkled.  
“Well what is it?” his voice was filled again with the excitement from when they first discovered the box. She lifted the item, feeling herself getting the same sensation of childlike excitement.  
“A scrapbook!” her face broke into a grin. “This might be the motherload, Mike,”  
She quickly sat on the floor of the attic, her knees up, the book placed on them like sheet music on a stand. Her brother scrambled to sit cross-legged next to her, craning his neck so he could see into the book when she opened it.  
It made a cracking noise as she flipped the cover, like the glue holding it together had set permanently into place and wasn’t accustomed to being disturbed.  
The first page alone felt like a shockwave into their brains. A picture of their mom, the town sheriff, and that Byers woman, as well as some other guy Nancy had the vaguest feeling of knowing. The 4 were crowded into what looked like a basement. The two boys were squeezed into a big armchair, Sheriff Hopper’s arm around the other boy’s shoulder. Their mom was laying on the couch between the other girl’s legs. This was strange in and of itself, especially due to the fact their mom seemed to have explicitly avoided mentioning being friends with these people, but the kicker was the joint placed gently between their mother’s index and middle finger and the general smoky atmosphere surrounding the teens.  
“Is that… what I think it is?” Mike asked.  
They’re mom had been explicitly anti-drug their whole lives, and had even taught them fairly young what ‘pot’ was, using fear tactics to steer them away from ever getting mixed up with it.  
“I- I think so,” Nancy replied, her jaw still dropped in shock.  
Mike began to read the words scrawled out in handwriting that was not their mother’s, on a piece of square construction paper glued into the scrapbook next to the photo.  
“The Rolling Stoners. 05/08/65.”  
Nancy couldn’t help but let out a small shocked laugh.  
“Well we’ve made it this far, might as well check out the rest of the book, right? I don’t think it could get much more shocking than this,”  
Mike nodded, he leaned his head against his sister’s shoulder, tired of angling it already.  
She flipped to the next page. A picture of Will’s mom, who Mike confirmed was named Joyce, and the other boy they couldn’t quite place. Joyce was sitting on his lap, her head leaned on his shoulder, and staring into a spot in the distance. The boy was staring into the same spot and the two agreed they seemed to be watching TV. The caption read ‘Bauman and Horowitz, inseparable. 05/26/65’. They wondered if Joyce had some secret ex-boyfriend no one knew about, the only guy the town seemed to know about was Lonnie, but that couldn’t be Lonnie. The picture below that one was of their mom and Joyce, asleep in the back of a pick-up truck, leaning against each other, Mike swore up and down that they were holding hands but it was too dark to see properly. ‘Lovebirds. On the way to camp. 06/11/65’.  
“Lovebirds?” Nancy’s voice was incredibly low. It could be a joke. People loved making jokes like that back then. Her eyes flicked to the next page over. An image of ‘Bauman’ and the sheriff. They were sitting in fold-out chairs scooted close to each other. The two were in bathing suits, but Bauman had a letterman jacket draped over his shoulders, as well as Hopper’s arm. The slightly smaller boy’s head was leaning against the other’s chest. Sirens started sounding in Nancy’s head as she read the text to herself. ‘In their natural habitat, a queer embrace. 06/12/65’. A lump formed in Nancy’s throat. This couldn’t be real. Mike seemed to be catching on as well. As she flipped the page again their eyes settled on the same picture. ‘PDA. 06/13/65’. A picture of their mother, Karen Wheeler, and Joyce Byers holding onto each other in the lake. Joyce’s hands were placed on Karen’s hips, and their mom’s arms were wrapped around Joyce’s neck. They were kissing. Not some weird ‘60s friend peck either. They were in the middle of a rather passionate kiss. Mike couldn’t pick his jaw up off the floor.  
“Mom’s…” he trailed off. Neither of them could say it. They flipped quickly through more of the pages, the group at various hangouts, looking more or less platonic, but every few pages one stuck out. Sandwiched between a picture of Karen dressed in clothes far too large for her and an image of Murray flipping off Joyce from across the living room, was an image of the sheriff spooning Bauman in their sleep. ‘Morning wood? 09/09/65’. Further down were more pictures of their mom in Joyce’s lap or in some kind of embrace, pictures of the couples kissing, pictures of the friends laughing. Nancy felt like her lungs were coming up out of her throat, like her whole life was a lie. Mike could see the anxiety building up and took her hand in his own, squeezing it tight. Nancy flipped to the last page. It wasn’t actually the last page of the scrapbook, just the last thing with anything on it. It was a picture of the strange boy and their mom. It looked like she was in a prom dress, but he was in regular clothes, they were sitting on a couch, her legs lifted up across his lap. Her mascara was streaking her face and the boy looked extremely exhausted. Not as though he had had a bad night’s sleep, but as though he had experienced too much in too little time. He was holding Karen’s hand in his own and forcing a smile for the camera, as was their mom. There were tear stains on the page. ‘Murray and me. All that’s left, I guess. 05/07/66’. Nancy shut the book. She wiped away tears she hadn’t even realized had built in her eyes. Mike was sniffling next to her. They didn’t know why they were so upset. They weren’t angry with their mom, they felt more angry that she never could tell anyone, and they knew that, they knew she never could tell anyone. They looked into each other’s watery eyes and made a silent agreement. _We aren’t going to bring this up_. Nancy stood slowly, hiding the scrapbook back beneath the neatly folded uniform and the other assorted cheerleading items. Mike folded the box shut and the two pushed it back into its corner. He wiped at his nose with the back of his hand, she rolled her eyes in disgust.  
“So…” he started, “who gets the points for that one?”  
Nancy laughed lightly.  
“Well I found the scrapbook,”  
“Yeah, but I found the box,”  
“You were gonna give up almost immediately!”  
“I figured out they were holding hands! I cracked the code earlier than you!”  
The two bickered back and forth until they heard their mother shout at them asking what was taking so long. They scrambled to grab as many decorations as they could find before rushing down the ladder, meeting Karen just in time at the base. Apparently she was about to go looking for them.  
“Alright, you two go put those up, I’ll call you when dinner is ready,”  
She pushed up the ladder and shut the attic door as the two grabbed their coats and headed outside. They shared a small side glance and smiles of acknowledgement. It was going to take a while to process this, but at least it was something besides cheerleading.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this spur of the moment at around 3 in the morning, but i hope you guys liked it anyways ! This, like basically all my works, fits into the rolling stoners fanon, and is dedicated to the wonderful mya <3


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